The ongoing manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has turned attention to a faraway and unfamiliar place: Russia’s southern border region of the Caucasus.
But so far the links between the horrors in Boston and this distant region—a land of stunning mountains, lush valleys, and upland villages—are tenuous. The operative comparison in the coming days may not be with bearded jihadists fighting in the forests of the North Caucasus but rather with homegrown American terrorists radicalized by the internet and misguided youthful ardor. We must all wait for the facts to come out.